Why Kraken’s loss to Stars was missed chance to reach Stanley Cup Final
Inside the NHL
Kraken fans will have mixed feelings over this year’s Stanley Cup finalists, given the participants and what they say about their team.
On the positive front, a first-time Cup champion will be crowned between either the Florida Panthers or the Vegas Golden Knights after a best-of-seven series that opens Saturday in Las Vegas. The NHL, partly through its improved expansion rules and mainly due to engineered parity wrought by its salary cap, has been rather successful in spreading around championship wealth.
This will be the third first-time Cup winner in the past six seasons, with whoever prevails joining St. Louis in 2019 and Washington in 2018. Before that, the Los Angeles Kings won in 2012, the Anaheim Ducks in 2007 and the Carolina Hurricanes the previous season — making it a half-dozen first-time champions since the 2006 onset of the salary-cap era.
Also, it will be the 12th different Cup winner in 18 seasons since 2006 compared with 12 in the previous 33 years.
So that’s encouraging for Kraken fans. On a more negative front, Vegas making a second championship appearance in six seasons of existence should put additional pressure on the newer expansion Kraken franchise to match those exploits. And even that might not be so bad despite how Kraken fans generally despise the Golden Knights. After all, professional sports teams often thrive when pushed to actively try to win as opposed to merely doing enough to look good.
For me, there was a little too much acceptance — and worse, indifference — in this market when it came to the Kraken’s underperformance during their 2021-22 debut season. Too many chalked it up to typical first-year woes despite the same highly favorable expansion draft rules Vegas had compared with previous new NHL teams. That allowed the Kraken to stockpile roster depth that proved so beneficial during their recent playoff run.
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Look, you’re either going to believe the Kraken magically jumped 40 points in one regular season and came within a breath of making the Western Conference finals all because of a handful of offseason moves. Or you’ll wonder whether the Kraken were more of a .500 team that woefully cratered in their first season before playing truer to form in Year 2 and taking a playoff leap when bolstered by Matty Beniers, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Justin Schultz and Eeli Tolvanen — and to a lesser degree backup goalie Martin Jones and injured Andre Burakovsky.
The difference matters when evaluating future expectations. As we just witnessed in the Kraken’s playoff run, not every title shot needs to come after the unfurling of some five-year plan. Sometimes, especially in the modern NHL, it happens much sooner.
Kraken general manager Ron Francis lamented in his season-ending media address that his players were disappointed in not advancing beyond the second round.
And they had ample reason: the Dallas Stars looked beatable against the Kraken and in dropping the first three games of the conference final to Vegas. Forget that Dallas rallied a bit. When you lose the first three it’s effectively over. The fact the Stars got blown out 6-0 at home in Monday’s Game 6 clincher was testament to their exhaustion after scraping a pair of wins together to avoid total embarrassment.
Stars goalie Jake Oettinger wasn’t his reputed playoff self and often looked human against the Golden Knights, as he did in Games 1, 3 and 6 facing the Kraken.
The difference was Vegas never let Oettinger off the hook the way the Kraken did by barely testing him in Games 2, 4 and 7 of their series. Dallas lacked the offensive depth of the Kraken and Golden Knights — Joe Pavelski and Roope Hintz alone did all the Stars’ second-round damage — and without Oettinger at his finest was there for the taking.
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Vegas swarmed Oettinger in a Game 3 victory that all but punched its Cup Final ticket. The Kraken blew their conference finals shot in Game 4 of the second round at home when, presented the chance at a 3-1 series lead, they fired just nine shots at Oettinger through two periods.
Would the Kraken have defeated the Golden Knights? You never know. They faced each other the final two regular-season games and were awfully familiar with each other.
The bottom line is teams don’t typically advance far in the playoffs by playing the maximum seven games more than once in the early rounds. Sure, there are exceptions such as the 2019 Blues winning a Cup by playing 26 of a possible 28 playoff contests.
Dallas played 27 total before losing the Cup Final to Tampa Bay in 2020, but that was in the COVID-19 “bubble” playoffs that negated travel stresses. Generally, teams such as the Kraken needing 14 games to try to escape the first two rounds won’t make it much further.
So, the lesson is seizing the moment.
Had the Kraken defeated the Stars in Game 4 they’d have had a chance to end their series in five quick contests and rest up. The Golden Knights needed just 11 games to get through the opening two rounds and made the final playing 17 of a possible 21.
Not once did they face elimination.
Florida took down the historically good Boston Bruins in a seven-game series. But the Panthers cruised through the next two rounds in nine games and have played only two more contests in three rounds than the Kraken did in two.
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Tough to believe the Kraken actually manhandled the Panthers in a December road contest. Sure, the Panthers won last season’s Presidents Trophy for the NHL’s top regular-season record, but they seemed doubtful to even make this season’s playoffs until the final week.
Same with Vegas a year ago, when fans everywhere were dancing on their grave and predicting cap-imposed doom because of their free-spending ways after they narrowly missed the playoffs.
Now they are four wins from a Cup.
So there is indeed more than one team-building approach to get to the championship finish line and no bonus points for taking longer than needed to do it. The Kraken just had a near-miss that may have been far closer to bearing fruit than many realize.
Sure, they’ll keep building for the future at the NHL draft a month from now. But then comes free agency. And given what just played out, the Kraken should remain as vigilant about the present as the long term so more opportunities aren’t missed.
Source: The Seattle Times
